As an aside, my garmin will record continuously for longer than this thing will last in sleep mode. Even the piddling apple can go 2 or 3 days.

The video of their swiss factory inserting the completed watch module from china into a fancy case and installing straps and calling it "swiss-made", well I didn't expect that much honesty! It's just too much navel-gazing and shark-jumping for me, especially the ALL-CAPS "SWISS MADE" stamped on the bottom.

Brand value can consist of a lot of things, but it often can be considered as the value added of a product being produced by one particular company vs. another. The traditional brand value has been that of quality. Where you buy a product from a company (say, toyota for example) you would then expect a future product with the same brand to have similar performance (or reliability, or consistent-fitting clothes, or after-sale service, or pleasant purchasing experience, or social or environmental activisim, etc, etc).

So in this case, Tag Heuer is probably adding a fair amount of value in terms of quality testing and control, and also pre- and post- purchase support through their dealer network. Surely if you were to purchase a new strap for this guy (for example) the dealer would install it for you. I doubt Samsung or Fitbit will do that.

But it cannot be denied that there is a lot of "logo value", where if the printed branding was scraped off the bezel of the thing and sold at best buy it would be worth $150 instead of $1500, the same as every other android wear watch that's a year or two old.

Garmin has been making GPS watches for 15+ years and those earlier models are still supported in the newest garmin connect software. Garmin has been producing devices (including avionics, military devices, and satellite phones) since the early 90s. Undoubtedly this history adds some value to their product.

Tag Heuer... they have been making watches for a very long time, it's true. I'm sure their watches are fine. This isn't a watch. It's a tiny computer, made by somebody else, that Heuer has installed into a fancy case and produced glossy brochures and some custom watchface software for. It is a me-too product produced by a company outside their area of expertise because they are scared of apple. It has no right to exist on it's own merit.

The kind of person who would buy a watch with a mechanical movement would never settle for a cheap smart watch, so there is absolutely no reason for a company such as TAG to go this way. As smart watches should not have any effect on such a market.

Garmin on the other hand makes very good navigational equipment, so in my opinion it’s perfectly acceptable for them to be in the smart watch market. Most of my colleagues who wear smart watches, wear Garmin’s.

You know what fake luxury is. Invicta watches, Michael Kors suits, everything you could possibly buy at the Pottery Barn or in most American malls. Mass-produced sweatshop junk gilded and pimped for the administrative assistant nervously considering how to spend a $250 Christmas bonus.

Real luxury is on a roll everywhere from Savile Row to Maranello, swept away on a wave of Gilded Age cash and the ever-increasing leverage power of capital, but fake luxury is in a tailspin. Patek and Vacheron will thrive, Rolex will hold steady, Breitling will collapse.

Garmin on the other hand makes very good navigational equipment, so in my opinion it’s perfectly acceptable for them to be in the smart watch market. Most of my colleagues who wear smart watches, wear Garmin’s.

Other than the vivoactive, I wouldn't consider any of their "wearable" products a smartwatch. This becomes obvious when you get an R2D2-beeper, monochrome screen, and when you don't have to give yourself an RSI just to see what time it is. However I'm only now starting to wrap my head around the more advanced measurements: https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp ... 5B732.html